Fires menace homes in 3 Western states
BURNEY, Calif. – Humid conditions Monday gave crews hope in their battle against two wildfires in Northern California that have scorched more than 100 square miles and are menacing a small town, at a time when firefighters in Oregon and Washington state also aim to combat destructive blazes.
The blazes raged mostly uncontrolled within miles of each other, and the worst of the two has burned eight homes and threatened over 700 more, state fire spokeswoman Capt. Amy Head said. Plus, residents in the town of Burney in Shasta County face possible evacuation.
“Right now, we’re continuing to put in containment lines to box in the fires as they are growing at such an explosive rate,” Head said.
The two fires, which began within a day of each other in Lassen National Forest and had expanded into private property, were burning through timber and brush parched by California’s historic drought.
Iraq air force to back Kurds fighting Islamists
BAGHDAD – Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has called upon his country’s armed forces to help the Kurdish military battle a Sunni militant offensive in northern Iraq that has caused tens of thousands of people from the minority Yazidi community to flee their homes.
It was the first sign of cooperation between Baghdad and Irbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, since Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, was taken over by the Islamic State group in June, signaling a degree of rapprochement in the face of the country’s deteriorating security crisis.
Iraq’s military spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said Monday that al-Maliki has commanded the air force to provide aerial support to the Kurds, the first joint cooperative effort by the two militaries since Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, was captured by the militants on June 10.
Iraq is facing its worst crisis since the 2006 civil war when the Islamic State group captured large swaths of land straddling the Syria-Iraq border with the goal of establishing a self-styled caliphate.
Syracuse University tops party school list
BUFFALO, N.Y. – Syracuse University has claimed the title of nation’s top party school. The No. 1 ranking was revealed Monday by The Princeton Review based on a nationwide survey of 130,000 students.
Syracuse’s student newspaper ranked second best among the 379 colleges surveyed – and its sports scene, rated third best, likely helped the party mood.
University officials were disappointed by the private university’s showing in the 2015 edition of The Best 379 Colleges. The book contains 62 top-20 lists gauging student satisfaction with professors, financial aid awards, athletic facilities, food and other factors.
Rounding out the top 5 party schools were: the University of Iowa (last year’s winner), the University of California-Santa Barbara, West Virginia University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Sex scandal hits Ohio State’s band
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Two music professors will be interim leaders of Ohio State University’s marching band, with one focusing on compliance and student safety in the wake of the investigation that led to the director’s firing.
The university announced the appointments Monday, less than two weeks after firing Jonathan Waters.
A two-month investigation concluded Waters knew about but failed to stop a “sexualized culture” of rituals that included students marching in their underwear and performing sexually themed stunts to get explicit nicknames.
Waters led the band since 2012 and created halftime shows considered revolutionary, drawing millions of views on YouTube.
Associated Press
